Tink om e tsjerken

Because of my Frysian roots, I was asked to participate in the project 'Tink om e tsjerken', also known as 'Beware of our churches'. It's a project that focuses on the vacant churches in the province Friesland in the Netherlands, now and in the future. An important aspect of this is to raise awareness and show people what possibilities vacant churches have to offer. I focused on the Reformed church in the village called Arum. Together with the village board, the Church Director and a potential buyer, I was able to come up with the concept 'live and work church'. On the one hand, Louis Hagen will be able to execute all of his creative ideas. On the other hand, the villagers will still have the opportunity to keep visiting their church. To strengthen the link with the village I choose the coning cadastre as a starting point for my design. Aside from that, the facilities in the church where put together the same way as they were put together in the village. I divided all of the facilities into three groups: private, semi and public. In this way the podium, the exposition space and the museum are all placed together as they are all public functions. By only working with coloured surfaces and different height levels, there still will be enough input for artist Louis Hagen.

(2014)

Logeer SPOT

As a designer, small designs that inspire sensitivity and impressibility are important for me. I tried to convey this in my graduation project 'Logeer SPOT'. The project responds to the place where I canshow my qualities as a designer in the best possible way; The Piccardthof, an amateur gardeners club on the edge of the city Groningen. Respect for nature is a very important thing for this gardeners club, and that's why I tried to emphasize this in my project. I decided to deisgn three small spaces called 'sleepover SPOTS' that all depict in a different quality: Air, Water and Earth. Eventually, I continued with the Earth SPOT, which fits in at the Piccardthof in terms of size and name. The design makes you look at the nature around you, but also lets you focus on yourself and the relationship between these two.

(2012)

The Playground

PTB Machinefabriek is an old factory situated in the centre of the city Groningen. It lends itself perfectly to something Groningen still misses: a festival vibe hotel. Lots of festivals take place in Groningen every year, but a suitable hostel is nowhere to be found to stay overnight in this kind of atmosphere. With that in mind, I decided to change this and design a hostel where everything is about feeling, seeing, participating and experiencing - similar in many ways to a festival experience. I conveyed this through the use of materials, constructions, heights and levels. I also made a distinction between public and private functions, which you can find on the fidderent levels. As a visitor you will be able to walk over the gangways to the top of the cylinders where private tents can be found. In your own tent you can withdraw yourself, whereas downstairs you can meet new people and relax in the lounge.

(2011)

Club Grounded

'Club Grounded' is a redesign project for a club in Newcastle Upon Tyne, England. This club will be for celebrities and my inspiration for this project was a homa. Since celebrities don't have much time to spend a thoma and would like to do this more, I thought the concept of a homa was really fitting. Being grounded is not a punishment for a celebrity. To be able to translate 'a home' into a vlub, I analyzed which facilities every house has. Eventually I gave all these facilities a playful twist, to make them suitable for a club. In this way 'the bedroom lounge', 'the body part bathroom', 'the lounge shed' and others were designed. Grounded is a club where it's all about 'see and be seen', where celebrities can withdraw from the public and party all night long.

(2010)

100% Design UK

100% Design UK is a large-scale design fair that takes place in England every year. In a team we designed the entrance of the fair as it would be in the Printworks building in Manchester. In 2010 the fair took place on the first floor of this building. Our part in this project was designing the way people moved between the ground floor and the first floor. We decided to come up with two staircases, with big lofts and a lot of light from above, that pulls people's attention towards the first floor immediately. The lofts, incombination with the lights, will illuminate the stairs and therefore will create a clear route through the fair. This will be amplified by the dark lobby around it. To make the light more interesting, we decided to make splits into the stairs sidewalls. As a result of that, an interesting shadow play will take place in the lobby. In addition, by using two staircases, visitors won't get in each other's way.